Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

But Janey didn’t want to ride. “I’ll walk and all you have to do is keep up,” she said. Of course it was no trouble for a man on horseback to keep up with a girl on foot, and Roscoe began to relax and even to enjoy the trip a little. It was pretty weather. All he had to do was trot along and think. What he mostly thought about was how surprised July would be when they showed up and told him the news.

Not only could Janey keep them on the trail but she was also extremely useful when it came to rounding up grub. Once they got settled in a camp at night she would disappear and come back five minutes later with a rabbit or a possum or a couple of squirrels. She could even catch birds. Once she came back with a fat brownish bird of a sort Roscoe had never seen.

“Now what bird is that?” he asked.

“Prairie chicken,” Janey said. “There was two but one got away.” They ate the prairie chicken and it was as good as any regular chicken Roscoe had ever had. Janey cracked open the bones with her teeth and sucked out the marrow.

The only problem with her at all, from Roscoe’s point of view, was that she was tormented by bad dreams and whimpered at night. Roscoe loaned her a blanket, thinking she might be cold, but that wasn’t it. Even wrapped in a blanket she still whimpered, and because of that didn’t sleep much. He would awake in the grayness just before dawn and see Janey sitting up, stirring the little campfire and scratching her ankles. She was barefoot, of course, and her ankles and shins were scratched by the rough grass she went through each day.

“Did you never have any shoes?” he asked once.

“Never did,” Janey said, as if it didn’t matter.

The only times she would consent to crawl up on the horse was when they had a sizable creek to cross. She didn’t like wading in deep water.

“’Fraid of them snappers,” she said. “If one of them was to bite me I’d die.” “They’re mighty slow,” Roscoe said. “It’s easy to outrun em.

“I dream about them,” Janey said, not reassured. “They just keep coming, and I can’t run.” Except for snapping turtles and sleep, she seemed to fear nothing. Many times coiled rattlers would sing at them as they traveled, and Janey would never give the snakes a glance. Old Memphis was more nervous about snakes than she was, and Roscoe more nervous than either one of them. He had once heard of a man being bitten by a rattlesnake that had gotten up in a tree. According to the story, the snake had dropped right off a limb and onto the man and had bitten him in the neck. Roscoe imagined how unpleasant it could be to have a snake drop on one’s neck—he took care to ride under as few limbs as possible and was glad to see the trees thinning out as they rode west.

It seemed they were on a fairly good trail, for every day they encountered three or four travelers, sometimes more. Once they caught up with a family plodding along in a wagon. It was such a large family that it looked like a small town on the move, particularly if you wanted to count the livestock. The old man of the family, who was driving the team, didn’t seem talkative, but his wife was.

“We’re from Missouri,” she said. “We’re going west and I guess we’ll stop when we feel like it. We’ve got fourteen young ’uns and are hoping to establish a farm.” Eight or nine of the young ones were riding in the wagon. They stared at Roscoe and Janey, as silent as owls.

Several times they met soldiers going east toward Fort Smith. The soldiers were a taciturn lot and passed without much talk. Roscoe attempted to inquire about July, but the soldiers made it clear that they had better things to do than keep a lookout for Arkansas sheriffs.

Janey was shy of people. She had keen eyesight and would usually see other travelers before Roscoe did. Often when she saw one she disappeared, darting off the trail and hiding in weeds and tall grass until the stranger passed.

“What are you hiding for?” Roscoe asked. “Them soldiers ain’t after you.” “Bill might be with them,” Janey said.

“Bill who?” “Bill,” she repeated. “He gave me to old Sam. I ain’t going with Bill again.”She continued to hide at the approach of strangers, and once in a while Roscoe had to admit that it was well she did.

There were some rough customers traveling the trail. One day they met two dirty-looking men with greasy beards and six or seven guns between them. Roscoe had an anxious moment, for the men stopped him and asked to borrow tobacco.

The fact that he was traveling without any didn’t sit well with them, and they looked as if they might contest the issue.

“I reckon you’re lying,” one said. He was a small fellow but had mean little eyes and was generally more frightening than his companion, a man the size of an ox, who seemed to take no interest in the conversation.

“Why would a man travel without nothing to smoke?” the little one asked.

“It never agreed with me,” Roscoe explained. “I had to give it up.” “If you was more dried up I guess we could smoke you,” the little one said, with mean intent.

But the men rode on, and Roscoe soon forgot about them and began to feel drowsy. The day was muggy, and occasionally he would see lightning flicker in the west.

After a while it struck him that something was missing, and he figured out that it was Janey. Usually, once the travelers were out of sight, she reappeared. Memphis had come to trust her and would follow her like a pet goat.

Only this time she wasn’t there to follow. Roscoe looked all around and there wasn’t a soul in sight, though the plain stretched out and he could see for miles. He was alone, and by no means sure of his direction. It scared him. He had come to depend on the girl, even though she was a loud sleeper. He yelled a time or two, but got no response. The fact that he could see so far scared him a little. He had been raised in a land of trees and was not used to country that looked so long and empty. How he could have lost Janey in such an open place was a mystery to him. He sat still for a while, hoping she would pop up, but she didn’t, and finally he rode on at a slow walk.

An hour passed, and then another, and Roscoe was forced to consider the possibility that he might have lost the girl. One of the snakes she took so little notice of could have bitten her. She could be dying somewhere back along the trail.